zlacker

I am pro-police and I do NOT want mayhem. The ideal protest in my eyes is a peaceful, effective one. One that causes real change -- like increased oversight, accountability, altered training, etc -- in the general police population: one that fixes the very real problems we've seen with police for years and continuously improves law enforcement for years to come.

Claiming "pro-police forces WANT mayhem" paints the situation in a very generalized, unhelpful, us-versus-them light.

There are definitely some pro-police forces that probably want some mayhem, for exactly the reason you state. There's probably others that want mayhem for other reasons. Across the board, however, I'd imagine most pro-police groups of people prefer peaceful protests that don't put officer lives at risk, not to mention all the collateral damage to protestors, buildings, economies, etc. that also could be avoided.

It's entirely possible (and, I'd argue, likely) that pro-police people aren't some homogenous group of schemers. You can be enraged about police brutality, abuse, and misconduct -- and also enraged by violent riots.

>>drusep+(OP)
When you see protestors with rubber bullet wounds to the head, there are police actively trying to kill protestors. Every training video says to shoot at the legs to prevent death. We really need to purge police departments of these people who view themselves as enforcers who dish out punishment.

>>drusep+(OP)
> The ideal protest in my eyes is a peaceful, effective one.

This is the US; you only get to pick one of those.

>>markdo+W1
Hardly. The civil rights movement is an excellent example of civil opposition done peacefully and effectively. It helped that there were many strong leaders in that movement across the country. Right now the energy is chaotic and undirected, without a strong voice of leadership to act as both the vanguard of the protests as well as the negotiators of change.

>>drusep+(OP)
We should be very clear though that civil disobedience and disruptive protest is absolutely not the same thing as violence and looting. In Austin TX protestors blocked the major highway through downtown, which is obviously very disruptive, but IMO did not warrant cops shooting rubber bullets/bean bags indiscriminately into the crowd.

>>ineeda+13
The one that involved the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. which led to riots in several of the nation's cities that eventually (but directly) led to the Civil Rights Act of 1968 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_assassination_riots )?

I am not in favor of rioting/looting but historically, it has been proven effective in some cases to get changes made.

>>drusep+(OP)
And yet there are dozens of filmed examples in the past couple days of police using unprovoked violence against peaceful protestors and other innocent civilians. There are quite obviously a lot of police officers who do in fact want and enjoy when they can legally employ violence against people.

>>ineeda+13
The civil rights movement had a substantial amount of violence and change only started to happen because there was a very serious threat of it escalating. Purely peaceful protesting has almost never worked and most of the examples people cite (India's independence, anti-apartheid etc.) include a large amount of historical revisionism.

>>adrr+w1
Police are trained to shoot for stopping power. A head shot on a target is a missed shot. There is no excuse for the number of rubber and pepper shots that have been above center mass.

They're either murderous or have "lucky" bad aim.

Exceptions apply for swat snipers in hostage situation

>>smiley+s9
> They're either murderous

Which is the whole point of the protests. If an officer is on a riot line and is murderous but the other officers on the line don't take them out (send them home or prosecute them), then the officers are just selectively enforcing the law (which I realize is a concept in US law enforcement) to the point of being corrupt.

>>ineeda+13
> The civil rights movement is an excellent example of civil opposition done peacefully and effectively

There were 150 riots in the USA between 1965 and 1968, when LBJ was gathering the votes for civil rights.

The Selma march involved police using attack dogs and water cannons are peaceful marchers. It's damned amazing that (perfectly justifiable) violence against police didn't break out. The tools police use now would (and do) make it far more damaging.

>>drusep+(OP)
> The ideal protest in my eyes is a peaceful, effective one.

I know several people personally who say this exact phrase, yet they mocked the football players who took a knee during the national anthem at games protesting exactly this issue.

Obviously most sane people would prefer an effective and peaceful protest, but there has yet to be one for this particular issue. So I am hardly surprised it has become this violent, especially with members of the police force and the president antagonizing people further. Also, I would add that any protest of great size naturally has people who try to take advantage of it and turn to anarchy. Shutting down such rioters with force seems to exacerbate the issue, as police force is what is being protest—an understandably difficult predicament.

>>sdkjfh+L8
Yep, both india and south africa had a huge looming background of potential (and actual) violence.

Nelson Mandela was literally a marxist terrorist, yet is often held up as some kind of ideal of non violent protest.